Drone for mapping and change analysis

The Wingtra drone used by geologists is a VTOL drone (Vertical Take Off and Landing): it takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter, but flies efficiently like a small aeroplane. This makes it possible to use the drone in demanding areas with limited space and steep slopes. The drone is specially built for mapping areas of several square kilometres and for achieving high surveying quality. The drone flies for about half an hour on one battery charge and takes hundreds of overlapping aerial photos. While the drone is flying, a GNSS base station simultaneously measures its position, which is later used to correct the drone camera’s position with great accuracy.

Post-processing kinematics technology is used for this purpose. The corrected overlapping aerial photographs can be used with photogrammetric software to produce a coherent orthomosaic, 3D point cloud and a digital elevation model.

By repeated surveys over the same areas, change analyses of unstable slopes can be made and fracture zones and displacement patterns can be mapped.